Spooky Frog Horrifying Books Podcast

Some people have commitment issues. Some people have anger issues. And some people have an uncontrollable urge to eat everyone they fall in love with. This November, the Spooky Frog Podcast is celebrating Thanksgiving Season the only way we know how: with a little cannibalism. In Episode #61, we hit the road with Camille DeAngelis’s 2015 novel Bones & All and Luca Guadagnino’s 2022 film adapta...

Welcome to the Spooky Frog Halloween Block Walk! Eight houses, eight vicious little free-to-watch horror shorts on YouTube, and an inspection of what’s in the bag. Some porches drop king-size nostalgia; others drop high-concept dread designed to wreck your week. We’re rating every single short on the official Candy Scale (Full Size Bar, Fun Size, Raisins, and Razor Blade) before running the surviv...

Welcome to The Weekly Spooky Frog! 🐸🩸 Sam and Jeffy head down to 1999 New Orleans to dig into a lush YA horror novel that weaves together teen romance, Filipino folklore, and Southern gothic atmosphere. When your high school crush might secretly be a manananggal (the iconic, winged, torso-splitting creature from Philippine mythology), first love gets complicated fast. We break down the incredibl...

In this episode of the Spooky Frog Podcast (S02E38), Jeffy and Samantha dive deep into Talk to Me, the 2022 Australian indie horror from YouTubers-turned-filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou (RackaRacka) that set Sundance on fire and became A24's most talked-about possession movie. Set in sun-bleached suburban Adelaide, the story follows grieving teenager Mia (a breakout Sophie Wilde), still raw...

In this episode of the Spooky Frog Podcast (S02E37), Jeffy and Samantha dive deep into Todd Grimson’s 1996 cult horror novel Brand New Cherry Flavor and its wild 2021 Netflix limited series adaptation created by Nick Antosca and Lenore Zion. Set in the gritty, pre-digital underworld of 1990s Los Angeles, the story follows ambitious underground filmmaker Lisa Nova (played by Rosa Salazar in the ser...

Unpack a cursed trunk, avoid eye contact with the wooden figure seated at the dining table, and pray whatever crawls inside the walls doesn’t catch your scent. In this episode of the Spooky Frog Horror Movie Club, Jeffy and Samantha dive deep into ODDITY (2024), the acclaimed Irish indie supernatural horror written and directed by Damian McCarthy (Caveat). When a woman is brutally murdered during...

This episode examines Scott Smith's The Ruins (book and film), following four Americans who, after meeting a German tourist in Cancun, trek into a Mexican jungle to a forbidden archaeological site. Locals try to warn them away, but the group becomes trapped on a hill/temple by a hostile, intelligent plant that mimics sounds and unleashes dehydration, body horror, improvised surgery, paranoia, and...

Jeffy and Samantha return on the Spooky Fog Podcast to review Late Night with the Devil. A 1970s-style live-TV horror about ratings, desperate stunts, occult rituals, and a broadcast that dissolves into possession and chaos. They analyze the film's period detail, standout performances, and its escalation from studio spectacle to body-horror. The episode also weaves in travel and gift anecdotes fro...

Hosts Sam and Jeffy dig into Arthur Avalos’s debut novel Something Happened, a summer-camp slasher that unfolds as a psychological whodunit. The episode breaks down the rotating character POVs, the family’s buried trauma, and how the killer’s identity is revealed through shifting perspectives. They also interview the author’s influences, share trigger warnings, recommend similar books and films, a...

Tonight’s episode of Spooky Frog dives into Undertone, an indie meta-horror film about corrupted audio files that begin to destroy a skeptic podcaster’s life and body. Hosts Jeffy and Samantha unpack the film’s isolating atmosphere, inventive sound design, and the tension between skepticism and grief as the protagonist caretakes her comatose mother. This episode also includes related recommendatio...

When a depressed writer and his overly optimistic agent camp at Devil's Lake with enough LSD to make every tree, shadow, and intrusive thought feel like it's trying to kill them, their trip spirals into a nightmarish cat-and-mouse survival against violent criminals where hallucination and reality blur into deadly danger. Hosts Samantha and Jeffy break down the novel's psychological horror, its Wis...

Curry Barker’s film twists the wish-for-love premise into a brutal study of bodily autonomy, following a mystical toy that forces Nikki into a horrifyingly controlled existence. This episode breaks down the movie’s move from dark comedy to psychological terror, its commentary on entitlement and control, the practical effects, and the performances that make the concept fully chilling.

Hosts Samantha and Jeffy dive into John Everson’s 2004 novel Siren, a gritty beach horror about grief, compulsion, and a deadly siren luring men into the sea. They discuss the book’s erotic and violent elements, its dual timelines (including a rum‑running ship a century earlier), and how mythology informs the creature. The episode also wanders through author tidbits-pinball obsession and pet cocka...

Hosts Jeffy and Samantha strap into power loaders and break down James Cameron’s Aliens (1986), exploring its blend of high-octane action, practical effects, and themes of corporate greed and motherhood. They discuss standout moments (the Hadley’s Hope ambush, the hive fight, the power loader duel), the film’s effects work and performances, and why Aliens still holds up as a definitive action-horr...

Hosts Samantha and Jeffy dig into CJ Leede’s American Rapture, a disturbing coming‑of‑age horror that mixes evangelical purity culture, puberty, body horror and a biblical apocalypse set in small‑town Wisconsin. They discuss pandemic parallels, House on the Rock and local Wisconsin details, trade travel and food tangents, give trigger warnings for graphic violence and emotional trauma, and recomme...

Check the back of your skull and say your prayers: for the 50th anniversary of The Omen, the Spooky Frog Podcast unpacks Richard Donner’s slow-burn 1976 thriller about an American diplomat who unknowingly raises the antichrist amid elite privilege, eerie photography, chilling practical effects and a trail of gruesome, iconic deaths. Hosts Jeffy and Samantha mix reverent analysis, pop-culture lore-...

A tangled horror puzzle unfolds across decades: a woman on the run, a secretive team of scientists, and revelations that force you to confront mortality. Samantha and Jeffy recap chaotic events—from a monstrous Blood Rave to indie film rants—then dive into Jared Waltz’s Morrowbound, a fast-paced sci-fi-horror puzzle that leaves you staring at the ceiling. They discuss the novel’s layered structure...

Pack your bags and check your pulse. This episode tears through a 90s crime thriller that flips into a neon-soaked, blood-drenched vampire siege. Hosts Jeffy and Samantha break down From Dusk Till Dawn’s genre-switching brilliance, iconic performances (including Salma Hayek’s unforgettable dance), Tarantino vibes, practical effects, and the wild survival tactics you’d want at the Titty Twister. Fr...

Hosts Samantha and Jeffy dive into Chuck Tingle’s horror novel Bury Your Gays, unpacking how the internet’s most absurd author uses humor and performance to deliver sharp social commentary. They discuss themes of queer erasure in Hollywood, corporate Pride, conversion therapy, and the rise of algorithm-driven, AI-generated monsters that turn creative work into real-world horror. The episode mixes...

Five restless romantics shelter in Byron's rain-soaked villa, hold a seance with a human skull, and unleash the hallucinatory terrors that would define gothic literature. Drug-fueled visions, erotic dread, and surreal practical effects turn a competitive ghost-story night into a chaotic birth of monsters. This episode dives into Ken Russell’s flamboyant reimagining of that infamous weekend—an into...

This episode explores Nick Cave’s debut novel And the Ass Saw the Angel, unpacking its Southern Gothic themes—religious fanaticism, violence, incest, and a fractured narrator named Eucrid—alongside vivid anecdotes about meeting the author, music influences, and the book’s raw, hallucinatory style. The hosts also share behind-the-scenes stories from a busy book fair, discuss music and cult bands, r...

Forget the prince, this episode dives into the 1972 eco-horror cult classic Frogs, a swampy southern gothic nightmare where Mother Nature fights back against a wealthy family’s pollution. Between eerie bullfrog choruses, inventive kills (including strangling Spanish moss) and a menagerie of reptiles reclaiming a poisoned greenhouse, the film is equal parts atmospheric and ridiculous. The hosts rif...

Two bad decisions, reading a stranger's diary and falling for its author. Pull bookstore worker Ellen into a dark obsession. As she keeps reading, the dairy's entries begin to mirror gruesome murders in the city, and she must choose whether to trust the charming man she's dating or the chilling words on the page. This episode of the Spooky Frog Podcast explores Brian Pinkerton's Killer's Diary, it...

For the 50th anniversary of Jeff Lieberman’s 1976 eco‑horror Squirm, we trek into the Georgia backwoods to revisit a low‑budget creature feature where an electrical storm turns ordinary earthworms into carnivorous nightmares. We unpack the film’s practical effects (millions of real worms and early Rick Baker work), its MST3K immortality, the film’s unintentional zaniness, and why this slimy cult c...

What if the scariest thing about a mall isn't what's in it, but what it remembers? In this episode Samantha and Jeffy dive into the anthology Escalators from Hell, discussing liminal-space horror tales featuring hungry escalators, watching mannequins, addictive machines, and dying malls. They cover standout stories, author backgrounds, and related books and films while sharing offbeat banter and b...